My Clockwork Muse (16 page)

"It is how the murderer got in and out of the
window. If you look to your left, you'll find a lightning rod." I
did not have to look to know it was there. Burton confirmed it to
be true. "It is too far to reach from the window. But by grasping
the open trellis at the base of the shutter, an intruder can easily
swing from the window to the rod, and then use it to climb to the
ground."

"Like this?"

Before I could utter another syllable, Burton
had already climbed into the window. Swinging both legs over the
sill, he grasped the base of the shutter and then lowered himself
over the edge. When he disappeared from my view, I called out and
rushed to look out. There I found him suspended thirty feet above
the ground. He gave a little kick and swung in an arc towards the
lightning rod. He grasped it with one hand and, planting the soles
of both shoes firmly against the stone façade of the house, let go
the shutter and commenced climbing up and down the rod, looking, I
thought, a little like a monkey. Or, rather, given his size, a
large, agile ape.

"Is this how he did it, Poe?"

He gazed at me humorously as he clambered up
and down the rod. It was exactly as I had envisioned it. I was
surprised, however, to see the task accomplished so easily. I had
had my doubts when writing the story, but I could see now that it
was possible, even for a creature as large as an orangutan, or, for
that matter, one the size of Billy Burton.

"Come back inside," I commanded. I saw a man
in the street look up. And then another. Soon a little knot of
onlookers had gathered and bystanders began pointing out the crazy
man hanging from the shutter. I had a sinking feeling. I reached
out my hand to help Burton back to the window. "You're creating a
scene," I warned.

Burton didn't seem to care. Two of the
bystanders were, in fact, now running across the street towards the
house. "Get back, Poe. Now, we'll see how your man got in. Up the
rod he goes. And then, grasping the shutter, propels himself
towards the window, thusly." He kicked his legs and swung back
towards the wall of the house. Hooking an elbow over the sill, he
hoisted himself up until I saw his face appear framed in the
opening. "Assuming he could open the window from the outside, as
you say. Which
—
" he lifted himself
over the sill and plunged headfirst into the room "
—
I think you've amply illustrated with the
broken nail."

Hurriedly, I helped him to his feet. "Very
good, Burton. So now we know the deed was possible." I glanced down
at the men running towards the house. "I'm afraid now we must
leave, though. At once, in fact."

"Right!" Burton said. "Out the way we came
in, then."

He turned and danced past the broken
furniture and dashed through the door by which we had entered. I
stumbled and staggered over the obstructions. By the time I reached
the door, I just barely caught sight of the hem of his frock coat
as it disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor.
That way lay the stairs, I knew, and I hastened after him.

Down one flight and turning again, I found
that I had now lost sight of him completely. I heard only my own
labored breathing. The corridor before me was empty. Then I heard
what I believed were the sounds of his footfalls coming from behind
a door to my left.

"Burton?" I called, but there was no
reply.

Thinking he must have found a short-cut out
of the house, I turned in the direction of the sound and, opening
the door, slammed directly into a man as un-Burtonlike as any you
could ask for. The man's face seemed to be cast in shadow and in my
shock I reeled backward.

"So you have returned to finish what you had
begun." The man spoke barely above a whisper and his voice was
muffled, as though by a cloth. I could not tell if it were high or
low, man or woman. "

"I had begun nothing," I assured the phantom,
supposing he was one of the bystanders, come to accuse me. When I
looked up, I was shocked by the man's appearance, for this was
clearly no bystander from the street but a menacing brigand, a
bandit come not to hurl accusations of a crime, but to commit one.
Wearing a blue velvet cape and a red sash begirt about his waist, I
might have taken him for some kind of eccentric squatter in an
otherwise empty house, but for the black silk mask that covered the
entirety of his face, and
—
especially!
—
the
rapier he held point-down at his side. I barely had time to
comprehend what I was seeing when he abruptly adopted the
en
guard
posture, threatening me with the tip of his sword.

I could not believe my eyes. Was I to be run
through in cold blood?

I pressed myself against the wall, still
unconvinced that it was the villain's intention to see me spitted
on his blade. My mind feverishly catalogued all those who might
have been harboring grievances against me. I could think of no one
who would consider murder just compensation for whatever harm I had
done them. Then I remembered Gessler. This was no doubt one of his.
Of course! This was the shambling Hop-Frog I had been expecting. I
almost wanted to laugh
—
right up to
the very instant that the masked fiend lunged at me.

I spun aside and the tip of the rapier
plunged deeply into the wall. My mirth vanished. This was not one
of Gessler's lackeys, I decided instantly, but a maniac bent on
murder.

"Henceforward art thou also dead," the fiend
hissed. "Dead to the world!"

He yanked his blade out of the plaster and
turned towards me. Without even holes for eyes or mouth, I could
see nothing of the fiend's face but the black veil. He seemed
implacable, remorseless, not quite human. Just as he was preparing
to renew his attack, I spied something hidden in the shadows at the
base of the wall behind me, a walking stick. I saw it as my
salvation and lunged for it. Whisking it from the floor, I whirled
and thrust it above my head, parrying a slash intended for my
face.

Now, at least I was armed. With my new-found
weapon leveled at his chest, I turned to face my assailant,
preparing to give as good as I got. I dared not consider how the
wooden stick would fare against the cold steel of the rapier.
Thankfully, I did not have to find out, for at that moment I heard
a clatter and bustle behind me. I turned and saw Burton and the
masked villain fled just as he rushed around the corner towards
us.

"There you are, Poe! I say, what are you
doing? Ah, my stick! I see you have found it."

"Defending myself from murder is what I am
doing!" I cried. "There! He went through that door!"

"
Wh
o?"

"The murderer, by God!" I shouted over my
shoulder as I dashed through the door on the heels of my
assailant.

Once through the door, I found myself alone
in what looked like a ballroom with all the chairs and tables
stacked up against the walls. I thought to find the man lurking in
the shadows. But, scanning the room, I saw no sign of him. Then I
noticed an open window. I rushed to it and looked out. I saw
nothing but the empty street below.

Then I saw, secured to the wall within easy
reach of the window, a drain pipe which extended the full height of
the building. No doubt the swordsman had shimmied down it. "The
villain has escaped," I declared with a mixture of frustration and
relief.

Burton thrust his head out the window next to
mine. He looked down at the empty street and then followed the path
of the pipe up the wall. I saw a shadow of doubt cloud his
eyes.

He pushed himself away from the window.
"Well, come along, Poe. We have our own escaping to do," he said as
the sound of the front door knocker reached our ears.

Whether he believed me or not, I now knew one
thing for certain: I was going to need more than Burton's walking
stick if I wanted to stay alive.

"Are you talking to me?"

I tried whirling quicker this time, but with
the same result. The heavy Colt revolver snagged on my coat pocket.
Instead of staring down my assailant with cold, steely eyes as I
had intended, I found myself yanking at the pistol grip until I
heard the
snitch
of the lining rip as I tore the weapon
free.

By then, it was too late. My steely gaze
would mean little with a neat, round hole in my forehead or a blade
in my heart. Looking back at me in the full-length mirror I saw an
embarrassed-looking little man with a too-large gun barrel
protruding from his smallish fist.

I glanced at the proprietor and uttered a
little chuckle. "I believe I'll try a more deliberate turn this
time," I said.

The gun shop owner looked up at the
ceiling.

I replaced the revolver in my now-torn
pocket, turned my back to the mirror and tried again.

Making my voice husky and threatening, I
asked, "Are you talking to me?" Then I turned on my heel, a little
more slowly this time. Withdrawing the revolver from my pocket,
however, proved no less difficult. Now, the long barrel fouled in
the fabric—got twisted up in it somehow. The handle slipped from my
fingers. The pistol fell and went skittering across the floor.
Empty-handed, I watched it disappear beneath one of the display
cases.

The proprietor's voice broke the silence "Yer
an author of some sort, right?"

I sighed. I decided I might as well proclaim
proudly who and what I was, because I sure wasn't a gunman. "Edgar
Allan Poe," I said, nodding, "poet and writer of tales of mystery
and the imagination. Perhaps you've heard of me.
'Once upon a
midnight dreary—'
"

"Yeah, I heard o' ya. You know what's not a
mystery, Edgar Allan?"

I closed my eyes. "What?"

"That ya can't handle the Colt, that's what.
Even when you manage to draw it, ya aim it square at the
floorboards. It's too heavy, you see? At best, you'da taken
somebody's toes out—probably yer own." He regarded my shoes
thoughtfully for a moment and then continued, his eyes working up
my frame. "Ya got frail little writer hands, that's the problem.
That Colt, why, she's just too much gun for too little man, I'm
afraid. No offense," he added quickly.

"Of course not," I said, wondering how such a
comment could
not
give offense. And so delicately put,
too.

"Are you sure you need a gun at all, Mr.
Allan?"

"That's
Poe
! And,
yes
, I need a
gun." Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath to calm myself.
"Someone is trying to kill me, sir."

"Well, from what I seen, I'd say it's
you
tryin' to kill you—judgin' from the way you handled that
Colt. And ain't that a matter for the police, anyway?"

"It's the
police
—" I caught my tongue.
Obviously, I couldn't tell him that it was the police who were
trying to kill me. I wanted to buy a pistol from the man, not send
him into the street shouting for the nearest constable. Once it
became clear to me that someone was trying to kill me—not just
frame me, as I had previously suspected, but
kill
me—I knew
I needed some way to defend myself. Leaving Burton at his office, I
was determined not to make another move without protection, so I
ran straight for the gun shop. If I had to haggle with the
proprietor just to get him to sell me a gun, I would. I gathered my
thoughts. "The police cannot always be where I am when I am ...
attacked."

The man considered. "Attacked, was ya?" At
length, he said "Well, seein' as how somebody's tryin' to kill ya,
I guess." He rose from his chair and ambled along the glass-covered
display case. "But, Mr.
Poe
, you don't want that long-nosed
Colt. Here's what you need." He reached under the glass and wrapped
a big hand around one of the pistols. "Somethin' like this one
here," he said, laying the gun on the counter top.

What had drawn me to the Colt was its size. I
needed a gun with enough kick to stop masked swordsmen and
reanimated corpses alike. What I saw before me now was far less
impressive. But it only took me a few seconds before I started to
warm to the looks of the thing. I raised my eyebrows
appreciatively.

"Go ahead, try it out. It's called a
'pepperbox'."

I bounced it a few times in my palm to judge
its weight and balance.

"Yes," I said, liking the feel. And not just
the feel. While the Colt had a revolving chamber and a single long
barrel, the pepperbox had a cluster of seven revolving barrels. All
were shorter than the Colt's, but there were seven of them, by God.
I held it to my eye to sight along one of the barrels.

"Oh, no. It's not an aimin' gun, Mr. Poe. The
pepperbox's strictly for shootin'." I eyed him quizzically. "From
the hip," he explained. "Go ahead. Stick it in your pocket and try
it in front of the mirror."

I did as he suggested. Slipping the revolver
into my pocket, I turned my back to the mirror.

"Here comes your attacker! Behind ya!" the
proprietor shouted.

He spoke with such urgency that for an
instant I imagined a legitimate threat. In a panic, I withdrew the
pepperbox smoothly from my pocket and whirled. I had already pulled
the trigger when I realized the proprietor's trick. The hammer
clicked on the empty chamber, and in the mirror I saw the barrel
cluster rotate one position. I chuckled in embarrassment.

"Bravo! That woulda done the trick, Mr.
Poe!"

I smiled, realizing it would have.

"With that thing, you can hit somethin' big
as a man, I’d say, at, oh, five paces or so, anyway. Certainly
woulda got that guy in the mirror."

Or the masked swordsman, I thought. Then I
remembered that I had bashed dead-Burton's head in with a
two-by-four to no effect. But who knew what seven barrels of lead
might have accomplished?